Africa, concerning which the general public knew nothing at all.

Murray noticed his intelligent and attentive silence, and counted it for righteousness unto the boy, that he could “keep his head shut,” at any rate. . . .

And next day The Blow fell!

For poor Captain and Adjutant Murray, of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth Infantry, it dawned like any ordinary day, and devoid of baleful omens.

There was nothing ominous about the coming of the tea, toast, and oranges that “Abdul the Damned,” his bearer, brought into the big, bare and comfortless room (furnished with two camp-beds, one long chair, one almirah [30] and a litter on the floor) in which he and Bertram slept.

Early morning parade passed off without unusual or untoward event.

Breakfast was quite without portent, omen, or foreshadow of disaster.  The Colonel’s silence was no more eloquent than usual, the Major’s remarks were no ruder, the Junior Subaltern’s no sillier, and those of the other fellows were no more uninteresting than upon other days; and all unconscious of his fate the hapless victim strayed into his office, followed by his faithful and devoted admirer, Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene, who desired nothing better than to sit at his feet and learn. . . .

And then it came!

It came in the shape of a telegram from the Military Secretary, and, on the third reading of the fair-writ type, Murray had to realise that the words undoubtedly and unmistakably were:

To O.C. 199th Infantry, A.A.A.

Second-Lieutenant Greene, I.A.R., to proceed to Mombasa forthwith in charge of your draft of one hundred P.M.’s and one Native Officer, by s.s. Elymas to-morrow and report to O.C., One Hundred and Ninety-Eighth immediately.  A.A.A.  Military Secretary, Delhi.

He read it through once again and then laid it on his table, leant his head on his hand and felt physically faint and sick for a moment.  He had not felt quite as he did then more than three or four times in the whole of his life.  It was like the feeling he had when he received the news of his mother’s death; when his proposal of marriage to the one-and-only girl had been rejected; when he had been bowled first ball in the Presidency Match, and when he had taken a toss from his horse at the Birthday Parade, as the beast, scared at the feu-de-joie, had suddenly bucked and bounced like an india-rubber ball. . . .  He handed the telegram to Bertram without comment.

That young gentleman read it through, and again.  He swallowed hard and read it once more.  His hand shook.  He looked at the Adjutant, who noticed that he had turned quite pale.

“Got it?” enquired Murray.  “Here, sit down.”  He thought the boy was going to faint.

“Ye-e-s.  I—er—think so,” was the reply.  “I am to take the draft from the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth to the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth in East Africa! . . .  Oh, Murray, I am sorry—for you. . . .  And I am so utterly inadequate and incompetent. . . .  It is cruel hard luck for you. . . .”

The Adjutant, a really keen, good soldier, said nothing.  There was nothing to say.  He felt that his life lay about him in ruins.  At the end of the war—which might come anywhen now that Russia had “got going”—he would be one of the few professional soldiers without active service experience, without a medal or decoration of any sort whatever. . . .  Children who had gone straight from Sandhurst to the Front would join this very battalion, after the war, with their honours thick upon them—and when he, the Adjutant, tried to teach them things, they’d smile and say: “We—ah!—didn’t do it like that at the Marne and Ypres. . . .”  He could go straight away and shoot himself then and there. . . .  And this pink civilian baby!  This “Cupid”!  No, there was nothing to say—apart from the fact that he could not trust himself to speak.

For minutes there was complete silence in the little office.  Bertram was as one in a dream—a dream which was partly sweet and partly a nightmare.  He to go to the Front to-morrow?  To go on Active Service?  He whom fellows always ragged, laughed at, and called Cupid and Blameless Bertram and Innocent Ernest?  To go off from here in sole charge of a hundred of these magnificent fighting-men, and then to be an officer in a regiment that had been fighting for weeks and had already lost a third of its men and a half of its officers, in battle?  He, who had never fired a gun in his life; never killed so much as a pheasant, a partridge, a grouse or a rabbit; never suffered so much as a tooth-extraction—to shoot at his fellow-men, to risk being horribly mangled and torn! . . .  Yes—but what was that last compared with the infinitely greater horror, the unspeakable ghastliness of being inadequate, of being too incapable and inexperienced to do his duty to the splendid fellows who would look to him, the White Man, their Officer, for proper leadership and handling?

To fail them in their hour of need. . . .  He tried to moisten dry lips with a dry tongue.

Oh, if only he had the knowledge and experience of the Adjutant—he would then change places with no man in the world.  Why had the England that had educated him so expensively, allowed him to grow up so hopelessly ignorant of the real elemental essentials of life in the World-As-It-Is?  He had been brought up as though the World were one vast Examination Hall, and nothing else.  Yes—he had been prepared for examinations all his life, not prepared for the World at all.  Oh, had he but Murray’s knowledge and experience, or one-tenth part of it—he would find the ability, courage, enthusiasm and willingness all right.